1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of data processing and information security. More specifically, the invention relates to a method for allowing visually impaired individuals to access secured websites or computer functions designed to require a human person to enter information and, at the same time, prevent automated systems to access the website or computer function.
2. Background
Current audio based Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (“CAPTCHA”) challenges are difficult to answer correctly. Users are played a sound bite of recorded but distorted speech and asked to type in what the user heard. The existing audio CAPTCHA validation tests are difficult to use and have a very low success rate. For example, it has been reported that the most popular version of audio validation tests (i.e., GOOGLE's reCAPTCHA) has a user success rate of no more than 46%. Because audio based CAPTCHAs are the only viable alternative for visually impaired users, and CAPTCHA challenges are used to protect many commercial websites, the difficult use and low success rate for visually impaired users represent a significant problem for that user community.
In addition, the sound bites for some audio CAPTCHAs are drawn from recordings of old radio broadcasts (e.g., GREEN HORNET, THE LONE RANGER, etc.) and are in English. There is no corresponding large base of audio material in other languages, limiting the usefulness of currently available audio CAPTCHAs. Furthermore, the standard visual based CAPTCHA challenges are susceptible to being solved by computers using various forms of analysis. Research has found that the challenges can be solved by computers 20% to 30% of the time.